


Insomniac

by vtn



Category: Green Day
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-12
Updated: 2006-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:57:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billie can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomniac

When Billie Joe counts, he hasn’t really slept in fourteen days. Fourteen days. Two whole weeks of sleepless nights. A fortnight.

It occurs to him all of a sudden that the ‘fort’ in fortnight refers to _fourteen_ , not a fort like in the army. Or a snow fort. Or any of the other kinds of fort you could be making, because no matter how many forts you build and how many nights you spend in them, none of them will ever start relating to the word ‘fortnight’.

There’s something of a fort in his bunk, right now, made out of blankets and pillows just like the ones he used to make from couch pillows or under the kitchen table with his brothers and sisters. There was once a supreme military battle in the Armstrong household, during which everything up to and including the refrigerator was included in some sort of stronghold. Or there was supposed to be, anyway. They spent so much time building up their forts that it was dinner time before they actually got to duke it out, and after dinner it just didn’t seem interesting anymore.

The past fourteen days have been kind of like that. There have been moments where he’s standing on stage, catching his breath, and suddenly he realizes just how wonderful sleeping will be that night and how much he looks forward to it, and then he spends the whole rest of the day getting ready to sleep, and then against all odds he just doesn’t do it.

Mike and Tré know. Mike and Tré know everything, and Billie admits to himself that not telling them he wasn’t sleeping was one of the worst ideas he’s had in the history of bad ideas. Although he has a feeling that he’s comprised a large part of the history of bad ideas. Like someday they’ll be teaching classes on bad ideas and they’ll say,

“Students,” and they’ll point their pointer at this big-ass timeline on their projector screen, “We must never forget the impact of the one man, Billie Joe Armstrong, who almost single-handedly cultivated the Bad Ideas Renaissance…”

Yes. Exactly like that.

Mike and Tré know, but they still haven’t done a thing about it, at least not successfully. They’ve certainly _tried_ —everything from over-the-counter sleeping pills, which didn’t work because Billie just started nodding off in the middle of lunch and then being even more wired come midnight, to plugging him with enough alcohol to make him pass out, which didn’t work because Billie is stubborn and has a high enough alcohol tolerance that he ended up spending those nights drunkenly raving and puking all over the gravel yard where they’d had to pull over the Bookmobile.

Billie isn’t really sure what it is that he needs. He refuses to even entertain the notion that they need to come off the tour, because first of all it’s not like this started _right_ when the tour did and second, he’s been on a lot of tours before and this hasn’t happened. Besides, the high of performing is the one thing that makes him forget what a state he’s in.

“Billie,” says Mike from somewhere underneath his bunk, “Last night you started playing At the Library in the middle of In the End. You’re aware of that, right?”

Mike has extraordinarily bad timing in addition to that good old best-friend-ESP, because evidently it’s been delegated to him to _remind_ Billie of what a state he’s in, as well as of the fact that it’s blindingly obvious to everyone else but him.

“Mike, I’m only aware of two things in the entire world, and that’s how much goddamn energy I have on stage and how goddamn tired I am all the rest of the time.” Billie kicks his blanket around. “Well, and the fact that I can’t sleep, no matter _how_ tired I get.”

“Billie, do you remember what you _said_ last night?” Mike stares him down. It’s almost accusing, and Billie pulls the blanket up to his chin even though it’s deathly hot in the Bookmobile.

“Did I say I wanted to become a gay stripper and wear leather and assless pants? Because if I did, well, I’ve actually decided to change my career ideal to professional pet wombat hair stylist. I’ll still wear the assless pants while doing it, though.” Mike laughs a little, but Billie knows the laugh is every bit as forced and protocol as his making the joke in the first place.

“You said you wished you were dead, Billie. That’s just not healthy, my friend.”

Billie gives Mike the finger.

“You’re right, I don’t remember saying that, but you need to wake up and smell the roadkill. I’m not going to kill myself.”

“Billie, waking up and smelling the roadkill makes it sound like I’m being too positive, not too negative. Look, the point is the way you said it, and how you looked like—well, you don’t care what you looked like. Just get some fucking sleep. Or I’ll make you.” Mike puts a foot up on the bunk ladder.

“Mike, if you get up here, I’ll never get to sleep. You’ll snore, and I’ll want to kick your ass, but I won’t, because you’re my best friend. And then you’ll hog all the blankets, and I won’t care because it’s as hot as ball sack up here, but I’ll still be pissed off on principle.”

“I’m not going to sleep in your bunk, dumbass.” Mike continues pulling himself up the ladder, and then sits down on the dirty mattress, making everything creak.

Billie frowns. Dumbass has become a very offensive term among the three of them, because they have come to a tentative agreement that even if they have the collective intelligence of a post, their asses are still ‘pretty damn impressive’ as Tré summed it up. Of course, it’s also partly due to the fact that when you and your friends call each other cunts and motherfuckers all the time, you need _something_ that’s actually going to garner attention.

“Then what in the goddamn hell are you doing, Michael Ryan? And since when did my ass become dumb?” He makes the usual wisecrack response, but his heart’s not in it.

“You’ll see what I’m doing,” says Mike, and then he hooks his arms around Billie’s waist, lifts him up, and _tosses him over the bunk railing_.

There is a split second during which Billie realizes he is going to die or break multiple bones.

The only thought he has time to think is _Oh fuck—_

And then as he lands in a tower of pillows stacked on a mattress, his mind completes the sentence: _Mike has finally gotten so tired of me he’s actually going to murder me_. Then he wonders briefly if having multiple fractures should in any way feel like pillows.

Then he’s being dragged out of the Bookmobile, the mattress moving underneath him and the pillows bumping up and down as they go over gravel.

“Fuck the fucking shit mother _fuck_ er! What the hell are you doing, Mike? I thought you were going to motherfucking murder my ass!”

“Billie, shut up. And when we’re done, I’m washing your mouth out with soap.” Mike has the handle on the side of the mattress grasped tightly with two hands and he’s pulling it out across the lot.

“Done with what?” Billie is on the edge of jumping up and strangling Mike. On the other hand, all the people in their RVs are going to notice if someone gets strangled in the lot in the middle of the night. Or at least he’s going to wake them up, and then they’ll be pissed at him.

“Come on, asshole, don’t you like surprises?”

“I like the kind that aren’t potentially life-threatening! And don’t involve me on a mattress in my fucking boxers in the middle of the night!” He’s almost frantic at this point, because Mike is dragging the mattress dangerously close to the road, and there are _cars_ on the road. _Fast_ ones. “Mike, did Tré think this up? Because you should _never listen to a thing he_ —”

Mike puts down the mattress.

“Mike, you do realize this mattress will never be usable again, right?”

“Hey, Bill, we’ve got like five rolls of duct tape on the Bookmobile. That’ll hold it together till the end of the tour.” Mike folds his arms. “You just going to lie there?”

“No,” says Billie, as a pounding headache decides to make itself visible, “I’m going to throw myself into traffic. It will get rid of this migraine, and besides I can’t figure out any other reason why you dragged me out with the trash on a fucking mattress.”

Mike hooks his arms under Billie’s armpits and pulls him up, despite Billie’s protesting.

“I definitely _didn’t_ bring you out here to throw you out on the side of the road. I wanted to show you something, stupid.”

“Fine. I’m game. I can’t sleep. But it had better be good, or I’ll kick you in the nads so hard you’ll taste ‘em.”

“Oh, _that_ ’s an appetizing thought.” Mike wipes his hands on his jeans. “Follow me.” He starts walking, the gravel crunching under his Converse, and Billie follows, because he has nothing better to do. And because Mike _does_ have a knack for finding interesting places.

In sixth grade they had wanted to build a treehouse, but it just didn’t happen, so instead they nailed the boards together and made a box with windows, which they set in the middle of the woods near Billie’s house, and called it their base. Whatever one was supposed to do in a base dissolved into reading comic books and eating chips, but they spent many a lazy Sunday in that base. It was, Billie thinks, the one normal thing about their childhood; it was a thing that comic book and TV show characters did and they did too, and when they were in the base, there wasn’t any yelling or bad grades or divorce or death. There was just Billie, Mike, comic books, chips, and the base.

When Mike leads Billie into the forest behind the gravel lot, the first thing he thinks is that it looks just like the place where they had the base. Well, sure, Billie’s woods didn’t have crushed cans on the ground or plastic bags hanging from trees beside the corpses of Mylar balloons, but it had trees, and a clear spot that was just the right size for a lopsided wooden box with windows.

“I…” Billie shakes his head and sighs. “You’re a—no. There aren’t even any words.”

“Who needs words anyway? I got a D in English!” Mike laughs and then there is one quick flash of seriousness, of serious caring, in his eyes before he closes them and leans in to kiss Billie.

Billie sighs, leaning into the kiss. He’s never forgotten the way Mike tastes, which is such a fucking cheesy thing to say, but it’s true. He couldn’t describe it in a sentence starting with “tastes like”—it probably should be like cigarettes but it’s just overwhelmingly _Mike_.

“You’re an asshole,” he says when they finally pull apart.

“I know,” says Mike, but he puts an arm around Billie’s shoulders and they stand there, looking at the stupid little messy clearing.

“I didn’t bring any chips,” Billie says lamely. He pokes at a twig with his toe, noticing his socks have holes in them now. Oh well—duct tape. Fixes everything.

“I thought about it.” Mike shrugs. “Too corny.”

“Yeah, you might have almost seemed like you were being _romantic_.”

Mike responds to this by sweeping Billie up in his arms, and they tumble to the ground, laughing. It occurs to Billie that the ground is dirty, but this notion leaves him quickly and soon he’s just swearing a comfortable blue streak at Mike and occasionally kissing him.

Eventually they’re lying there, burnt out of laughing, staring up at the sky. It would have been nice if it were starry, but Billie takes what he can get, and the orange-grey of a cloudy sky lit by streetlights is by all means good enough.

Billie yawns.

“ ‘M tired, Mike.”

“I know.”

The base was intended to be an army base, way back then, even though there was no army to speak of. It never really mattered. Billie has always known that from that little base, he and Mike could have conquered the world.  



End file.
